Oregon Art Beat; #101; James Lavadour

Good evening, and welcome to another edition of Oregon Field Guide. I'm your host, Steve Aiman. There was a time when wetlands were seen as a nuisance, but we learned a lot more about their environmental impacts. I'm your host, Steve Aiman.

Good evening, Steve Aiman. Good evening, Steve Aiman. Good evening, Steve Aiman.

Good evening, Steve Aiman. Good evening, Steve Aiman. Good evening, Steve Aiman.

Good evening, Steve Aiman. Good evening, Steve Aiman. Good evening, Steve Aiman.

Good evening, Steve Aiman. Good evening,

Steve Aiman. Good evening, Steve Aiman. Good evening, Steve Aiman. Good evening, Steve Aiman. Well, Crow Shadow is founded in 1992 by James Lavador, who is a contemporary landscape artist. And James Jim grew up here on the reservation. He is enrolled in Walla Walla. And when he was growing up here, he noticed that there are a lot of people on the reservation that are artistically inclined in some shape form, you know, whether it be contemporary art or traditional arts. But he also noticed that a lot of them weren't able to make some type of living or to enhance

their economic situations. So Jim is actually one of those few native artists that has made it in the contemporary art world and is quite successful. And he decided, he am in a group of other people decided to get together and build an institute that would be on the reservation and be accessible to tribal people. Not only do we provide services to Native Americans, but we are also open to the general public because one of the main things become successful is that you have that mainstream outlet to be connected to that. So we have a lot of relationships with different organizations and people from just various places that come here to Crow Shadow and work with native artists too or with each other. So what do you get the money to keep something like this going? This is a nice facility. Well, that's an occupation. We get our funding from a variety of sources, foundations, some commissions,

the private contributions, and the tribe, and also help. So there's a variety of things that we are able to utilize, but we are always continuously working for grants and things along the lines. What are some of the facilities that you do have here? Some things that we have here, we have a computer lab, we have a dark room, we have, of course, the printmaking studio, which is what we really are centered on. And we also have a jewelry lab, we have a mat and framing lab, and the resource library. And how much of your purpose is to keep alive the traditional Native American crafts and arts and those kinds of things? Wait a second. So the question is how much of your purpose is to keep alive the traditional art forms of the Native Americans here? Well, our mission statement is to provide educational, economic, and social opportunities for

Native Americans through artistic development, and that major part of education is to revitalize and preserve. We kind of have our workshops schedule split up in two segments. One is the winter workshops, which is primarily traditional. It's like 12 workshops for four or five months, and then the other summer workshops schedule is contemporary primarily, and we have a couple of traditional in there too. And one of the things that really makes us quite unique is that we are actually educating a lot of people, not only revitalizing these cultural activities, but we are actually educating people about Columbia Plateau art forms. Most people think of Indian art, they think of coastal art, they think of the Southwest, or they think of the plains. That's the type of imagery people get in their head, and most people don't realize what Columbia Plateau region encompasses, what is it about? You know, our livelihood, our world view here, so it's really exciting. What are some of the art that you need to this area?

Well, we have corn husp hats that are worn during summer monies, and we also have the basket -twining, the different techniques done with a lot of... At the long time ago, when the traders were coming in, it was with peloton wool, and so a lot of people were utilizing those types of materials because they were no longer able to go out and gather. So wool was incorporated in the baskets, so those became trade baskets and things like that. Cedar root baskets are very beautiful, and we use those for collecting huckleberries, and so those are a few of the things that make us unique. How does the Crow Shadow Institute integrate with the Umatil Reservation, economically and culturally? How are you a part of the reservation now? Well, we, first of all, we're located right here that's on the reservation, and we provide different services here. We have workshops that can be throughout the weekday,

and people can come to those instead of sometimes if we have them on the weekend, people from far away can come from, like the Calville Reservation Warm Springs Nespers, the McCaw, the Lummy. And when we have just some things about the weekdays, that's more accessible to our local people, and we also provide workshops for our children here. We have a native youth art program where students come in every Thursday evening and create art. You've only been going now a few years, but what do you feel like you've accomplished? What made you feel good so far? Well, I feel like what we've accomplished a lot of is the outreach, is letting people know and understand what Native American art is. Most people have it rather, what is the word, rather kind of a limited view, and there's just so much to our culture that not only are we as

Native American people able to share our knowledge and information and pass that on, but we're able to show a broader view of who we are to the outside world, and I find that really exciting. What are some of the programs you're running for the kids here? A program, some of the programs that we have here would be printmaking, which is again, we majorly focus on, and teaching the kids different techniques, not only with just the printmaking, but things about design, and color. They are learning problem solving, some things that they work on collaborative works together with papermaking, and they create a book that has themes to it, that maybe something that's really personally involved to the student in an expressive way. For them to do things. What's been the reaction of the kids? How is it succeeding with them? The reaction has been really, quite receptive, the kids are really happy, they look forward to coming up here, we have some volunteers that go and collect the kids and bring them up here too, and work with them, and the

kids will see them throughout the way they can say, are we going to crochet? Are we going to crochet? They can't wait to come. What kind of work have they turned out? They have turned out, actually, a lot of forms, we've done things on relief printmaking, we've done dry point, we've been able to create even monotypes on Plexi, and the kids learn, I started to learn the jargon, the words, you know, monotype literally means one in print, and they'll say, I can't get another print of this, it says, no, it's a monotype. But we also had kids turn out just beautiful work, and we actually had a special group that we've been working with, and the homestead youth lives, a group of young men, 14 to 17 years old, and they created, throughout about nine weeks, excuse me, nine months, period of time, where they went through different forms, and then we took the selected prints, and then maddened and framed them, and they had

an exhibit here in a reception. For them, and also in the community in Pendleton. Oh, it's neat. Is there something that I'm not asking that you'd like the people of Oregon to know about crochet, or what's going on here? Well, one of the things that crochet, most people see our mission statement, they think we're really limited to only servicing Native Americans, and that's not what we are about, we are about being that bridge that helps Native Americans to be able to go out there into the mainstream, but you can't have that bridge if the people are coming on this side too, and we welcome all people to come to crochet shadow and visit and see what we have to offer. Are there any dramatic success stories as any of the people that have started working here, and, you know, that you've helped, have they gone on to be successful? Well, we've just started, but one success story that I can think of right off hand is that we had a young, well, she's not young, she looks young, but she's an older lady, and she has actually gone on to art school now. She's enrolled in Carvellis

as an art student, and she started here, and she's had her work at our new interpretive center to must elect, and she's even just gone on, and she's able to start creating a portfolio here. And another story I can think of is we have a young man who is only 19 years old, and he had his first auction, he went to, and he got up, there was very serious, spoke about himself, and then when he saw his print, the price going up higher and higher, he had his incredible smile, you know, in the end, you don't need to shook my ends and thank you, and we find experiences like that, that's what we're about. One of the main things that Jim has always emphasized with us is to create experiences for people so that it's an exceptional experience, that they'll come and some is quite impressionable. Okay, I got what I need. Thank you. Thank you.